Right from the start, this unsigned Scottish band roar into life with an intensity of sound that's almost scary yet combined with this almost cut-off emotion-less feel to the vocal, to create something that is not only amazing, not only got a depth to it that requires about three listens just to take it all in, but is just over two and a half minutes that you'll want to play over and over again. To the sound of bell-like percussion, “Palatine” begins, only for a sudden burst of low-register guitar feedback to emerge from the depths and, almost the very next second, there's this eruption of guitar fog and driving drumming, topped with searing heat lead guitar in the distance, fast-riffing guitar that you barely discern in the massive guitar haze that's surrounded you, while the male vocal practically intones the verses with an air of early seventies needle-use distance, the whole thing a mighty train-ride of sound that stops you dead in your tracks, designed to be turned up loud and not just listened to, but experienced. There's also a repeated refrain from the guitar that comes and goes, wordless female vocals that also come and go and that heat-haze of guitar density, all of which make up the most explosive two and a half minutes of songwriting you've heard in ages. If this wasn't enough to make your jaw drop, “Go” repeats the process – only faster!! - without pausing for breath, that massive pounding drumming takes no prisoners as the guitar army marches on, the, now-multi-tracked vocals deliver the verses and the repeated title, as a guitar rises in the mix and delivers a riff that really catches your attention, the whole thing sounding like a reborn New Order colliding with legendary Krautrockers Neu!. Almost as though the band realise that they're about to produce the classic song that New Order never did, they hit the reverse brake, decelerate, Sheila's drumming still pounding away relentlessly as the band let go this seething mass of guitar feedback, bass-like undercurrents and the ever present swirl of a thousand guitars, the whole thing starting to climb and accelerate, adding layer upon layer as the lead guitar growls, the vocals start to rise, repeating this line incessantly and the intensity and adrenaline-rising menace delivers this immense fog of guitar attack and feedback as the drumming accelerates its inexorable pounding might and this huge tower of sound ebbs and flows to breathtaking degree before finally coming to a halt in a blaze of feedback. “Palace Of Words” goes even further out on a limb as the awesome swirl of guitar density includes fx, feedback, heated leads, more feedback, deep rivers of stoned guitar fog, swathes of reverberating guitar explosions – the drums pound at the beginning but then even they realise that they don't stand a chance against the wall of guitars. Pre-recorded NASA-type intonations hit the airwaves to ice the cake and it's an incredible sound that confronts you.
BUT....if all this wasn't the end of the universe in sound, there's the positively world-shattering fifteen mind-expanding minutes of “Calvinball” where the band initially head out on this mid-paced rampage as Sheila's drums pound away, Paul and Peter's guitars create everything that you could wring out of an electric guitar from fedback to amorphous sound explosions through searing heat leads and crazed feedback to deep booming guitar undercurrents and foggy riffing. Just as you think the nightmare can't get any more intense, Paul start off on this spoken rant that is like the last intonations of a proud Scotsman witnessing the end of the universe coming right at him in this ball of shattering sonic intensity that is The Wildhouse creating the end of everything in a unstoppable fireball of guitar-drenched, drums-driven sound. The rant only lasts a couple of minutes before the band carry on, but then returns at intervals throughout the track, as the band create this massive roar of guitars and drumming. In short, it's like nothing you've ever heard before and, knowing The Wildhouse, nothing you will ever hear the likes of again. All I can say, is grab this CD, turn the volume up to ear-shattering and engulf yourself in this sonic eruption – you'll never be the same again!!